Thoughts, reflections, and whimsies as I experience life

Archive for the month “November, 2012”

November is National Novel Writing Month, my birthday month, and two-week-holiday-from-college month, which makes it three times as fantastic. I actually found out about NaNoWriMo over the summer, and (naively) was looking forward to participating in it this month.

However, I forgot that I am in college. Taking 18 credits. With three exams in November. Plus essays. And failing at effectively scheduling writing time. So I decided to forgo participating in NaNoWriMo this year, and am already regretting it. Couldn’t I have made time? Everyone else who participates obviously has other commitments as well. Yeah, I’m not a fast writer by any stretch of the imagination, but I could have done something, right?

Maybe. But I also realized that if I tried to start a new story, I would feel guilty about putting my current WIP on hold for the month, especially because I really wanted to finish it by the end of December. To achieve this goal, I’ve decided to come up with my own deadlines for the next 1.5 months. This way, I’ll feel like I’m participating in NaNoWriMo even if I’m not technically participating. At the end of the day, I’ll be writing, and that’s the most important thing. So here goes:

Goal: 60,000 words by January 1 (Yay for New Years!)

Current word count: 18,751 words

Words per week: roughly 5893 words a week, which is around 842 words a day

This is going to be rough. I’m not even sure I can achieve this goal, but giving myself a concrete deadline will force me to write. Plus, the holidays should give me plenty of free time to catch up.